Man jailed for selling wife for sex

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A man who sold his mentally disabled teenage wife for sex has been jailed for five and a half years by a court in Stockholm.

The man, 44, was convicted on pimping charges. A 35-year-old man was sentenced to two years and nine months for charges including rape. The men had together sold sex with the 19-year-old woman to over 100 men. The woman was advertised on an internet sex site.

The 44-year-old met his wife online in 2006. They married shortly afterwards and the man started to sell sex with her to other men. The sex buyers came to the man's apartment, to a hotel in central Stockholm and to apartments in Gothenburg.

Prosecutor Robert Näppi told Attunda District Court, near Stockholm, that the woman's learning difficulty made her particularly vulnerable. He compared her situation to that of a victim of human trafficking.

In its judgement, the court wrote that the 44-year-old's crimes were "a particularly ruthless exploitation of the victim." The court said that the man, who has children of about the same age as the victim, must have realised that she had learning difficulties.

Giving evidence, the man had told the court that he had helped the woman to sell sex, thereby admitting to pimping charges. He denied, however, using the woman's learning difficulty to control her.